in Old long syne

Winter is here as well as winter in Arkansas can be. The leaves are dying and falling off the trees and the air turns from crisp to sharp and hard. The daylight erodes away sooner leaving the world in a thick silence in a way that only this time of year can be. This is the time of year that I enjoy taking walks at night around my neighborhood sometime after eight or nine when there is nobody out. It is very peaceful and allows for plenty of time to think. Often on these walks this time of year I reflect on the previous year, as I always do towards the end of December, to evaluate where I am, where I’ve been, and where I plan to go from here. This year is the strangest place I’ve ever been in. This will make for the first year in my entire life that when the new one comes around I have no idea what to do next. I have a mild plan sure, but I have no where to be, nothing in particular to do and nowhere to go. I’m just here. Usually this time around its time to get ready to go back to school or some other thing that has gone on that carries over from one year to the next. 2007 to 2008 is close, but there I knew at least a goal that I was headed to. Currently there is none.
No having to say it the plan I had is no longer an option and now I’m left to wonder what to do with myself now. The only immediate thing I can and need to do is earn enough money to pay my bills and start paying my student loans sometime in the next few months. Aside from that I’ve got nothing really. I can get a new job in my field or I can just work at Target. I can move somewhere far away or I can stay put here in Conway either in my mom’s place or a new apartment. The only tentative plan that I have come up with is work my current job until it runs its seasonal course and in the meantime keep applying for jobs wherever. Then as time gets closer get another job around town and just save money. I’m still going to move out at some point because that would just be too pathetic to be living with my mom at 27, even tho it’s a little awkward at 26 but that’s no the point.
All personal things aside what is it about the new year that gives us such hope and such a fresh start? Other than the calendar changing, what really changes and makes it something new for us? Honestly nothing. It’s a self implied feeling caused by time and our social idea of it. If we didn’t have clocks or calendars then everyday would be just the same as the last. Days would begin and end without much notice other than thinking I’ll finish this tomorrow or I did such and such yesterday. I’m not advocating a removal from the system of time or anything I’m just noticing things. Maybe its that promise of something new is why we always do it. Why we make a New Year’s Resolution. Why we make a goal at the beginning of a new year to do something different in the next. To make ourselves better, or accomplish something, but always try again. Its kind of a lesson in hope and faith I suppose or on the other hand one of procrastination to say I’ll fix that next year.